Wendy Carpio, a surgical technician at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, was among about 40 health care workers at the hospital who protested outside the hospital May 7, 2024. The workers were protesting layoffs that Bon Secours Charity Health System, which includes Good Samaritan, were hit with recently. About 50 workers at various Bon Secours hospitals in the Hudson Valley were laid off.
Washington D.C. – Hundreds of federal health workers, including senior doctors and agency leaders, were informed early Tuesday morning that they were losing their jobs as part of a major restructuring of U.S. health agencies. The cuts, announced last week by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are part of a sweeping effort to shrink the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by 10,000 employees.
The layoffs affect critical agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), significantly reducing the federal workforce responsible for regulating food and drugs, protecting Americans from disease, and conducting medical research.
Some senior leaders, particularly those based in Washington, D.C., were reassigned to Indian Health Service (IHS) territories in remote regions—a move employees described as a strategy to push them out by forcing relocation across the country. Notices began arriving at 5 a.m., affecting workers from global health offices to medical device regulators and communications staff.
At the FDA, deep staff reductions led to the termination of 3,500 employees, including key personnel in food, drug, and medical device policy. Many senior leaders, including top tobacco regulator Brian King, were reassigned to regional IHS offices. Some workers discovered they had been terminated only when their building access was denied on Tuesday morning.
The CDC also faced major cuts, with 2,400 employees laid off and entire departments dedicated to chronic diseases and environmental health eliminated. Those affected included staff researching injuries, asthma, lead poisoning, smoking, and radiation exposure, as well as teams studying the health impacts of extreme heat and wildfires. Despite Kennedy’s emphasis on infectious disease control, some teams focused on vaccine access and HIV prevention were also dismantled. Notably, Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC’s HIV and sexually transmitted disease center, was placed on administrative leave. Other teams tracking mother-to-child transmission of HIV and conducting global health research were also eliminated.
The NIH saw similar upheaval, with multiple institute directors reassigned to IHS territories. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Dr. Anthony Fauci as the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Shannon Zenk, head of the National Institute of Nursing Research, were among those facing relocation.
Communication offices across HHS, including at the NIH, CDC, and FDA, were particularly hard-hit. Renate Myles, the communications director for the NIH, was among those reassigned. Kennedy has stated his intent to consolidate federal health communications, promising “radical transparency” under a centralized structure.
Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary for HHS, defended the reorganization, stating in an email Friday that the agency “is centralizing communications across the department to ensure a more coordinated and effective response to public health challenges, ultimately benefiting the American taxpayer.”
With the department’s workforce set to drop from 82,000 to 62,000 employees, the full impact of the cuts remains uncertain, but critics warn that the loss of experienced personnel could hinder the government’s ability to respond to public health crises. Legal challenges to the layoffs are expected as displaced employees and their advocates push back against the sweeping changes.
